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Arkansas and Women’s Right to Choose

Any typing I do between working the night shift and working it again should be spent on writing the 10-page paper that hangs over my head. But my “morning” ritual of local coffee and perusing the newspaper took precedent on a recent rainy day. Most days, as my mind recoils from a long night of intensive care nursing and an interrupted day of always-too-short sleep, I have very little energy to invest in the headlines that the New York Times brings to me; so and I simply skim, enjoy the taste of coffee, and the feel of newsprint between my fingers. But this day was different.

“ARKANSAS ADOPTS A 12-WEEK LIMIT FOR ABORTIONS,” grabbed me out of my fog like the cold winter air. Instant anger prompted a thorough read, instead of my usual picture-book browsing. To my disbelief, the great state of Arkansas successfully passed the preposterously named law, “The Human Heartbeat Protection Act,” and in doing so, is limiting an Arkansas woman’s right to an abortion after the first fetal heartbeat is heard during her initial trimester of pregnancy.

Yes, significant opinion suggests this unconstitutional law will be overturned with little difficulty. But, in a state with only two abortion providers–one clinic providing both medical and surgical abortions, and one providing only medical, which providers can only administer until 8 weeks of pregnancy–this law poses an incredible threat to Arkansas women’s freedom and ability to choose whether to proceed with a pregnancy.

Geography already greatly limits Arkansas women’s choice to terminate pregnancy. A resident of Fort Smith, Arkansas’ second-largest city, would have to drive 186 miles, or about three and a half hours, to get to the only existing abortion providers, both located in Little Rock. In New York-speak, a trip from Manhattan to Syracuse–not an easy commute that a stressed, emotional, financially-strapped woman could schedule and make. I made quick calls to both abortion providers and learned that scheduling time is currently minimal–an average of one week wait. But with the potential travel distance, scheduling around normal life, and this new law restricting legal abortion time down to only 12 weeks, a woman could easily miss her window.

This law not only compounds Arkansas’ access problems, but drastically infringes upon its female citizens’ rights to their own beliefs and decision-making. By inferring that human life starts at heartbeat and booking a law to regulate and criminalize abortion decisions based on that belief, Arkansas legislators and anti-abortion activists have moved the national abortion debate into a horribly sticky area–the legislation of personhood.

The way I read it, this law insinuates that if a woman chooses to have an abortion after 12 weeks–the time a fetal heartbeat can first be heard–she is engaging in the murder of a human, not simply the execution of a medical procedure to resolve a condition she does not desire. The state of Arkansas is attempting to legislate beliefs, forcing its women to view an unborn fetus is a child–a requirement that has no place in the legal system of America.

The only place that this belief should be freely decided upon, is in the heart and mind of the individual woman who is choosing the fate of her life and body, and the emotional burden of this choice should not be exacerbated by state law that promotes unfounded guilt and shame.

It is incredulous that a state is proliferating such discrimination against its female citizens to the detriment of their freedom, emotional peace, and rights. I look forward to the speedy overturn of this law, but I offer my sincerest condolences to all of the women whose rights, choice, and freedom to foster their own beliefs will be affected until that day.

March 8, 2013

author: Editorial Staff

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Any typing I do between working the

Health, Policy

I Dream a Borough Free From Hunger

CHMP Senior Fellow Charmaine Ruddock, MS directs Bronx Health REACH, a coalition of 50 community and faith-based organizations, funded by the Centers for Disease Control’s REACH 2010 Initiative to address racial and ethnic health disparities.

So now, the Bronx, in addition to having the designation as the poorest urban congressional district in the United States (approximately, 40% of residents live below the federal poverty level), has the additional, unfortunate, designation of being the hungriest neighborhood in the country.

Here is the irony; we also have one of the highest rates of obesity. For children – 1 out of 3 in the borough’s Head Start program is obese, and nearly 4 in 10 in public elementary schools are overweight or obese. For adults – 1 in 4 adults is obese, and 2 in 3 are overweight or obese.

The other irony is that the Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market, which is the second largest wholesale market in the world, supplying 60 percent of the city’s fresh produce, is located in the Bronx. But little of this gets to the hungriest Bronx residents, especially those in the South Bronx.

This seeming paradox of being the hungriest as well as the most overweight and obese actually reflects two sides of the same problem. Poor people with very limited resources also have access to the worst nutritional quality of food. What they can afford limits their food choices to those that are calorie dense but nutritionally poor. However, this represents a potential market for the cheap food industry, thus it should come as no surprise that there has been a large influx of fast food restaurants in the Bronx. And, if you read The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food in the New York Times Magazine you were made even further aware of the enormous odds that the poor and hungry face in trying to feed themselves and their families.

March 8, 2013

author: Editorial Staff

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Policy

A New Prescription for Health?

Tucked inside the pediatric clinic at Nassau University Medical Center (NUMC) in East Meadow, NY, is the help desk of Health Leads, a new program staffed by enthusiastic and committed students from Hofstra University.

These young advocates fill “prescriptions” for food, utilities, transportation, and other services for local families in need.

The program addresses non-medical needs of families that may affect their health and wellness, such as living environments, access to nutritious food, or child care. Clinicians learn about these needs through questionnaires that patients fill out at each visit. They then “prescribe” items like food, or electricity to run home health equipment just as they would prescribe an inhaler for asthma or antibiotic for an infection.

This is a first-of -its-kind program in Nassau County and could serve as a care model for other large suburban locales.

With support from a professional case manager, trained students connect families with appropriate resources and help them with applications, navigate red tape, and ensure needs are actually met. The students essentially act as case workers, helping families determine what services they are eligible for and how to traverse the often-confusing process of applying for aid or special programs.